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Thursday, March 24, 2016

This is Part II of a two-part discussion about
Luigi Cozzi's 1978 Italian "rip-off" of Star Wars, Starcrash. To read
the first part of this article, visit my buddy Rik Tod Johnson's Cinema 4 Pylon website at: http://bit.ly/21IWR4A

PART II

Rik: The chief influence of
this film is clearly George Lucas' Star Wars; that cannot be denied. But there
is a huge dose of the legacy of the late Ray Harryhausen at play as well.
Stop-motion animation, not even close to being as fluid as Ray's patented
Dynamation process, plays a big role in this film in a couple of scenes. The
one that played a big part in coaxing me to the theatre was the sword fight
between Hasselhoff and a pair of robots that look like Gyro Gearloose from the
old Uncle Scrooge comics constructed them. They even look like they have
stylized duckbills. Hasselhoff picks up Gortner's lesser form of lightsaber (it
now reminds me more of the way that a Schwartz was used in Spaceballs) and has
a battle against the extremely jerky, sword-wielding automatons. The swordplay
is actually surprisingly engaging, even if the animation is definitely and
expectedly subpar to its influences (most definitely the skeleton fights in
Harryhausen's Jason and Sinbad films).

Where the stop-motion
animation really fails for me, however, is in the scene with the giant
"female" robot (with titanic, possibly titanium, breasts for some
reason -- who knew robots breastfed?) on the beach. The entire sequence is
clearly modeled after the Talos scene from Harryhausen's classic Jason and the
Argonauts, but it is almost painful to watch, so awkward are the relatively
simple movements involved in the scene. You could say that Talos in the
original movie was also jerky and awkward, but he was a normally inanimate
statue that had just been magically freed from its base. Talos was towering in
stature and composed of metal, like the "female" robot here, but its
limbs were not built for movement at all, merely to support its mass as a piece
of art; hence the jerkiness in its motions. However, Talos is imbued with
remarkable life by his creator -- that god being Harryhausen -- and as stiff as
he is naturally portrayed, he has clearly been brought to life fully and his
muscles and joints move, albeit deliberately, in a surprisingly life-like
manner. The robot in this film clearly has working knees and elbows, and
therefore it must be surmised that it is meant to walk around and perform its
duties, most likely to guard the planet upon which it resides. However, it
moves every bit as jerkily as Talos, even more so due to an obvious lower range
of talent attempting to duplicate the moves of the great Harryhausen. Of course,
maybe the Amazons on the planet were just inept engineers and technicians, and
they made a shitty robot that could barely move as required.

Aaron: That giant robot not
only had breasts, but large gear shaped nipples, as well! In a good film,
striking design choices like that can easily be explained as atmosphere-enhancing
aesthetics, but in Starcrash it just made me wonder, while watching that scene,
why the guard had been built that way. I suppose the fact that it’s a planet of
Amazons might explain why they’d choose a feminine form, but it did seem
strangely sexual. And why hadn’t they bothered animating even a basic bend of
the arm at least once? The animation looked like something a bright,
enthusiastic nine-year-old would make in their backyard. I mean, it’s great
looking for a nine-year-old playing with his action figures, but for an actual
movie projected in theatres, it’s laughably subpar.

Speaking of references, I
really got a kick out of how blatantly they stole the look of the Martian
mastermind from Invaders From Mars for that of the judge that sentences Akton
and Stella to hard labor for their various crimes. On top of those references
already noted, there’s at least one shot that seems to directly echo Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey, Zarth Arn bears a more than passing resemblance to Ming
the Merciless from Flash Gordon, and some of the ship-launching sequences look
suspiciously like those in Battlestar Galactica. That last one may be nothing
more than coincidence considering how close their releases are to each other.

Rik: Starcrash gets a lot of
surprising mileage out of just how colorful and charmingly fantasy-like its
vision of outer space is. The stars at night may or may not be big and bright
deep in the heart of Texas, but they are bigger and brighter here. Every
planet, moon, and star is represented in the sharpest of hues, and whatever
demerits can be attributed to the film on nearly every other level, one cannot
deny that much of the film is very pleasing to the eye. I am only watching the
film on DVD, and it is awash in the most brilliant colors, far more than I
remember. I can only imagine that the Blu-ray I gave you for Christmas is even
more pleasing (not that you have seen the DVD version).

Aaron: I have not seen the
DVD as you say, but I have watched some clips online (and on the special
features) that feature some of the footage before it was touched up, and the Blu-ray
is indeed pretty great looking. Aside from some blurriness here and there as a
result of aged film stock, everything is pretty eye-popping. There is one
downside to this, however, as the added clarity betrays some of the shots of
deep space to look like exactly what they are: multicolored light bulbs placed
against a black background.

But yes, of course, the visuals
are great fun. The exteriors of the ships are off kilter and interesting
(though the ship from the beginning, the one that the emperor’s son escapes
from, looks a bit like a guitar frame someone stuck some plastic bits to and
then spray-painted grey), and the interiors are full of oddly designed
furniture and decorated in primary, often clashing colors.

Rik: As I mentioned earlier,
in that attack on the Galactic starship at the beginning of the film, Count
Zarth Arn's minions use a weapon that creates a field of floating red spheroids
that are undeterred by walls or atmosphere, and simply drift through everything
in their path. The red spheroids exert a mind-altering force that serves to
drive the crew of the starship mad and ultimately cause the starship to
explode. This is the terrible weapon that, later in the film, Stella and her
pals are recruited to stop. It is a very simple but weirdly effective scene.
The spheroids are never actually touching or even in the same plane as anything
else; they are merely superimposed by the filmmakers over everything (according
to Starcrash expert Stephen Romano, the images are of various objects floating
in a fish tank). While the effect looks as low-rent and cheesy as anything in
the rest of the film, I found it to be one of the more memorable images from
the film, and it has stuck with me since that first teenage showing. The same
effect is used later in the film, on an even larger scale, when Stella's ship
is attacked. This time, the effect grows even more psychedelic, with other
elements added to the superimposed imagery. Watching it now, even seeing how
simple it is, it kind of holds up for me as one of my favorite moments in the
film. What did you think of the use of the red balls?

Aaron: I must admit it didn’t
quite affect me in the same way. I agree it’s a nice enough image, and a clever
use of their limited budget, but the weapon itself seemed so… ill defined. The
characters never refer to globular red balls floating through the ship, and
instead repeatedly say they were attacked by groups of monsters. But there’s
really nothing monstrous about them, other than how unsettling it would be to
travel through space and suddenly find yourself inside a red lava lamp. There
was a lack of physicality to them that I found hard to connect with, and I
couldn’t really suspend my disbelief enough for them to read as menacing in any
way. They do remind me, however, of Rover, that giant white ball that acts as a
security system in The Prisoner. That’s a similarly cheap and spherical effect
that nonetheless still unsettles me when I see it.

Rik: The Prisoner is such a
great show, and yes, Rover has always unsettled me, even to this day. Getting
back to the red blobs, I did find it amusing that one of the very first things that
Starcrash historian and DVD commentator Stephen Romano says when the scene pops
up is to discount the theory that the filmmakers have merely superimposed an
image of a lava lamp over the rest of the film. It made me chuckle because that
is what my friends and I have always figured it was over the years.

Watching Starcrash now,
Caroline Munro is every bit as lovely as I remember her, but there is an odd
thing that must be told about her performance. Even though she is a British
actress, Munro's dialogue was dubbed for its Western release by Candy Clark,
who was married to Marjoe Gortner, who plays Stella's super-powered sidekick,
Akton, in the film. Supposedly, when they redubbed the film, both Munro and her
husband, Judd Hamilton (who played the loyal robot, Elle), were not flown over
to America to save expenses, and so Clark and character actor Hamilton Camp
were used in their places. It's a shame that we don't get to hear Munro's own
voice as this is her biggest role in a film, and because I find Clark's line
readings to be as off-kilter and often stiff as many of her own performances.
Though I do adore Candy Clark in certain films, I don't think she is a
particularly adept actress, and her voice doesn't quite match some of Munro's
reactions emotionally. That said, the only voice I find annoying in the film is
that of Elle the robot. The Texas twang with which Camp imbued the robot in the
English dub is quite tiring and ridiculous, and it adds undoubtedly to the
film's cheese factor.

Physically, Munro is jaw dropping
gorgeous as Stella Star. She only wears her skimpy leather bikini outfit for
the first chunk of the film, and as a teen, I was upset that her outfits gets
increasingly less provocative as the film progresses. By the end of the film,
Stella is completely covered up in a full bodysuit and cape (and ultimately, a
space helmet). While one would look at any another movie for its psychological
implications (has the hell-bent Stella been tamed by her conversion from
bikini-wearing smuggler to demure heroine?), the real reason here seems to be
Munro wanting more to wear in the film than just a leather bikini. On one of
the audio commentaries, Romano quotes Harlan Ellison as saying that they had to
ugly up Munro a bit for the film so that the cameras wouldn't melt. I've looked
around to verify this quote (unsuccessfully so far), but I do have to agree
that such a thing might have been possible.

Does Caroline Munro affect
you in the same way, sir, or is my lingering affection merely a by-product of
my misspent youth?

Aaron: All I can say is that
Caroline Munro is delightfully cute, and it was a pleasure to spend a couple of
hours watching her traverse the stars. I can only imagine what my opinion would
be had I been exposed to her in my formative years. However, it saddens me to
know that I can’t really appreciate her performance in this film, as her lines
were dubbed by someone else. She certainly appears to be giving it her all, but
the lines come out a bit stale, which is a problem that affects almost everyone
in the cast, even those who were able to dub their own dialogue. You mention in
particular disliking Hamilton Camp’s portrayal of Elle, and while I can’t argue
with you, I have to say I kind of enjoyed the hillbilly twang he gave the
robot. It was such an out of place detail that some part of me loved the
randomness of having a robot in this fantasy galaxy speak like an extra on Hee
Haw.

I would like to take a moment
to talk about Marjoe Gortner’s character, Akton. As I said, he seems like a Han
Solo analog at first, but turns out to be more Obi Wan Kenobi. That may not be
entirely accurate, but he’s certainly supposed to be Starcrash’s version of a
Jedi master, complete with light saber. But it continually bothered me how
little they go into Akton’s powers or background. He just randomly exhibits new
powers whenever the plot demands, and while no one ever expects him to have
these powers, no one ever questions them either. Discussing plot holes or story
inconsistencies seems almost beside the point for this film, though. Starcrash
feels beyond criticism, in a way, as if the normal rules of storytelling don’t
apply to it. Still, I think a little bit more information about this character
would have been much appreciated.

Rik: No one is ever going to
mistake Starcrash for Star Wars. But I also think that some of the spaceship
design is pretty interesting. One of the ships is even named after science
fiction author Murray Leinster, who specialized in pulp adventures such as this
(though his works were often more elevated intellectually than Starcrash). By
the time I saw this film, I was not only immersed in the technology of Star
Wars, but also Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers (I actually watched the TV
pilots for both series in theatres). I was swamped with outer space
dogfighting, and so when I finally did get to see this film, I had already
gotten a bit tired of spaceships due to the over-saturation of the market.
Honestly, I really just wanted the film to get to the parts with Stella, so
maybe my teenage boy sex drive had overtaken my patience with everything else.
Watching the film since, though, I really enjoy many of the ship scenes,
especially the quite appropriate design of the evil Count's ship, which looks
like a giant, clawed hand.

Aaron: The ships are great,
and straddle the line between innovative and old-fashioned. Some of the ships
are clearly on tracks, and look like the planes that would attack Godzilla in
his early decades, but then some of them are quite interesting and feature more
detailed movement. Zarth Arn’s fist-shaped ship (try saying that five times
fast) is the clear standout, though it does beg the question; what is that
design for? Have you ever wondered why Zarth Arn would need five extendable
digits on his space fortress? They don’t appear to provide any protection or
added benefits beyond being a cool visual gimmick. Then again, given how
flamboyant Zarth Arn is in his fashion sense and demeanor, that would probably
be enough for him. In a quick side note, Joe Spinell as Zarth Arn really
reminded me of Dave Grohl, which gave me a quick chuckle any time he was
stomping around the screen.

Having now seen the film
two-and-a-half times, I think I might be done with it for a while. I enjoyed
it, but I think I’ll let it sit in my memory for a little while, where I can
let the neat visuals and the fun swashbuckling moments overshadow the more
perfunctory plot motions. Seeing the film for the first time as a man in his
late thirties, I think that might be the best way to experience this film; as a
burst of juvenile excitement. Best to allow it to sit in your mind and remind you
of how totally awesome sword-fighting robots, spaceship dogfights, and the very
idea of ‘the haunted stars’ can be.

Rik: Obviously, the design of
Zarth Arn’s fist-shaped ship is so he can pull four of the fingers back to flip
the bird at his enemies. He’s just that type of guy. I see your point about
Spinell reminding you of Dave Grohl, and I must admit it did cross my mind
briefly and made me chuckle a bit. Spinell, as he often does, sort of reminds
me of the younger and not yet enormously rotund Ron Jeremy as well.

I, too, am probably done with
Starcrash for a good while. Having just watched it about five more times in the
past couple of months, I think it is burned in pretty good for the time being.
In those two months though, my estimation for the film has gone up ever so
slightly, but not so much that I ever forget my long-running disappointment
with the film. Loves and hates that stem from childhood or your teen years are
awfully hard to shake. I still think Caroline Munro is one of the most
beautiful women to ever appear on the movie screen, but I also think Starcrash
is well below what constitutes a good film, even on a pure entertainment level.
That said, were I ever to throw a video party again (not that I have in the
past twenty years), this might be one that I would choose to show everyone a
crazy, weird time and allow everyone to riff at will.